Website Load Testing

Yuliya Boedeker

And

James C. Helm, Ph. D.

INNOVATION 2002

May 16, 2002

ObjectiveThe objective of this presentation is to

show theWhat are the website load testing and

stress testingReasons why web sites chokeTesting Tools for web applications

What is the web site load testing

Load testing

is an evaluation of system performance under normal conditions, all the way up to the maximum number of users supported by your configuration.

What is the web site stress testing

Stress testing

is a determination of how the system behaves when pushed "over the edge", including how well it recovers from being pushed in this fashion.

Reasons why web sites choke

Memory Leaks-These are the bane of many a site, and are almost always due to one of three things:

-sloppy programming practices

-poorly written third-party components

-older components in the operating system or software layers

Reasons why web sites choke

Resource Locking - happens in databases, where records are "locked" against being modified so that reliable results can be returned.

Bottlenecks - area in system operation where the flow of data is constrained and causes everything else to slow down.

Reasons why web sites choke

Transactional Problems- problems with

detailed interchange of information between the site and its user, and often involves some-thing that is processed in several distributed steps on the backend.

Hardware Limitations - hardware you have just isn't enough to support the work you need to do.

Testing ToolsMicrosoft Web Application Stress Tool

Primarily designed to serve static pages Tests Web applications and sees how they

perform under stress Can be scripted through a browser by

recording transactions and redirecting it through the Stress Tool

User don't have to write the code for the test by hand, can simply fire up the browser, browse normally, record actions, and then use that as the stress test.

Testing ToolAstra Load Test

It's powerful, flexible, highly programmable

It uses a browser as a preliminary scripting tool

It is available for different platforms like Windows NT, 2K, XP, Me, Win 95/98

ConclusionsA load test emulates user activity and

analyzes the effect of the real-world user environment on an application.

Load testing can identify problematic parts of a web application before it is accessed by hundreds or thousands of users.

Load testing uncovers fatal errors